6. Dom
“Don’t say a word.” I barely manage to get the words out when Emma climbs into the front seat of my cruiser, wearing the uniform I never imagined her putting on.
I also won’t be telling anyone that for the first time since I put on the uniform, I actually checked out another officer’s ass. And damn, Emma fills it out amazingly.
Fingers clenched around the steering wheel, I wait until she’s buckled in before I open the laptop that’s bolted into the vehicle where the center console sits.
“This is our CAD,” I explain like she’s just any other rookie.
She has to be.
I can’t think of her as anything else.
If I let her under my skin, I’m going to bend her over and fuck her in my cruiser and that will lead to both of us being fired, which won’t be a good thing. In fact, it will probably be the absolute worst thing that can happen. And I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I can’t get my mind out of the gutter, I’m going to fuck her. I’m going to claim her, because she’s fucking everywhere, and she shouldn’t be.
Why can’t she leave me in peace?
Two weeks.
I just need to survive this for two weeks, and then I’ll be gone for this mission.
The last fucking mission.
Then I can think of her as more than a rookie.
My fingers are unsteady as I enter in my username and password, unlocking my specific dashboard.
“When we get a call, dispatch will put all the information here, on the screen. Most of them will automatically run checks on all parties involved, but you need to be able to use and maneuver the computer just as well as they can or even better. Your life depends on the information on the screen.” On and on I drone, trying to forget the way she smelled in my arms. Blocking out the taste of her lips on mine as I danced with her.
Flashes of the imaginary scene I’d created in my mind while watching her with Bee does the job, and the raging hard-on I have for her evaporates into thin air.
A reminder that I can’t claim her.
Until her hand brushes mine as she pulls the laptop toward herself, the mechanical arm allowing her to make the transition without any effort.
“Amie let me see hers, but not with any information on it, of course.” Her hesitant admission sits between us, and I have two options. I can pretend that she doesn’t have a voice, that she doesn’t have any questions for the entire time we ride together, or I can do my job and keep my dick under control.
“She’s a great cop,” I say as I take the higher road. “You will learn a lot from her. I’m surprised Chief didn’t have you team up with her.”
“Amie explained that she’s going on vacation next week,” Emma explains happily, looking me directly in the eye as she speaks. “And since I need two weeks of training before I go to the academy, he wanted me to have someone there consistently for my training. Not starting with one person and then switching. It’ll be more efficient this way.”
I let her babble, because that’s what Emma always does, and I don’t mention the fact that I shouldn’t even be training her since I’m not in patrol anymore. But it isn’t my job to question the chief of police. At least not with anyone else there. After Emma is off duty and there aren’t any other officers around? Then I’ll ask him what the point is.
“Why aren’t you in uniform?” Emma’s question takes me by surprise. “You weren’t in uniform last night, either. I figured it was because you just got home, like Linc said. But you’re not in uniform now, either.”
With a sigh, I turn away from her and pull out of the parking lot, struggling against snapping a smart-ass retort. “I’m not a patrol officer. Although, I’d think that would have been clear when we got into an unmarked vehicle, rather than a patrol car.”
“I didn’t even notice,” Emma admits. “I was just trying not to fall on my face and give Linc something to record.” I glance over to see heat rising in her cheeks. “Linc was making funny faces at me from his cruiser, and I could see Daisy pooping in the back seat of Remy’s cruiser. I didn’t really think, just hopped in before he could ask me to clean it as some sort of rookie hazing.”
I snort in response. I saw Daisy being a jackass like she almost always is with Remy, but I hadn’t seen Linc making faces at his sister.
“Are we going to be responding to calls today?” Again, Emma’s question catches me off guard, and it shouldn’t have. “If you’re not on patrol, I mean.”
“No,” I tell her. “You’re going with me to follow up on cases of mine that have been covered by the other detectives while I’ve been out of town. Just chasing down paperwork and wrapping things up.” I pull onto a side street and park. “First, we need to get a few things straight. You don’t interact or offer any type of advice. You don’t police. You’re training. Stand to the side. Do not interact with any subject unless I invite you into the conversation or they address you directly. When or if they do, I want you to defer to me.”
There’s more than a little a flash of defiance in her eyes, a lot like the look she had when she pulled four flasks from under her bridesmaid dress at Remy’s wedding.
“This isn’t up for discussion.” I open my door when I get to the first stop, sliding out of my truck with ease. “You’re a rookie, you may think that you know what the response should be, but you’re not trained. You’re here strictly in an observational capacity, to get your sea legs and understand what should and shouldn’t happen.”
“Understood.” She takes me completely by surprise.
I swear she was going to argue with me.
But she didn’t.
I walk ahead of her—because if I’m behind her, I’ll stare at her ass again—and lead the way.
Eight hours later I want to poke my own eyes out with an iron. Or maybe the rusty spork that I know some of the wives have threatened their husbands with before.
“Thank you, Dom.” Emma smiles at me as we finally pull into the parking lot for Birch PD. “I really appreciate everything I learned today.” She grabs her notebook, one I hadn’t even noticed in her hand when she got into the vehicle at the start of shift. One that is now almost half-full of notes that she’s scribbled after each and every call we made. She’s also peppered me with question after question about policy and procedure. I gave her every answer that I knew and told her when I wasn’t sure, until she had to have enough material to write her own book.
She was taking notes through all of it, and damn if she isn’t the best rookie I’ve seen on day one.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She waves chipperly and bounces away, leaving me staring at her as she goes.
“I could kill you for staring at her like that, you know.” Linc leans against my truck, but I don’t take my eyes off his sister’s ass. “I really should.”
“No, you couldn’t even if you wanted to. I’m a better shot. Better with my fists. Better in every way, really. Besides, you keep trying to set us up.”
“Yeah, he does,” Remy pipes up from the other side of my truck, where I can hear Daisy’s nails clicking on the pavement. “If I hadn’t stopped him, he might have asked for you to be her TO. Luckily enough, I think her dad went ahead and made that particular call. Maybe they’re all in on it. Trying to set you up so that you can take her off their hands.”
“Fuck my life,” I tell them both. “Your parents are in on the whole matchmaking thing now, too?”
It would be just my luck for Robert Hayes, the fire chief for Birch County, to make a call to his best friend, the police chief. There will be no getting out of being her TO after that, if that’s the case.
“Hey.” Linc raises his hands defensively. “That had nothing to do with trying to get you to take her off our hands and out of our hair. That’s all because of who you are. Neither of us can be her training officer, man. That leaves the rest of the assholes we work with… or you. If he paired her with Amie, you know she wouldn’t get a fair shot. They’d assume Amie took it easy on her or something like that for the entire week and they’d make it their mission to wash her out during the second week before she even goes to the academy. With you, everyone knows you’re a hard-ass.” He stares down at his hands, mocking me by making a satisfied face. “You might as well accept it, Dom. You’re the only real candidate to be her TO.”
“We’ll see about that,” I tell him honestly. “There’s got to be someone else.”
Remy, now on our side of the truck with Daisy sitting on his feet like she is a lapdog, coughs. “There is. But you’re not gonna like it.”
“Anyone else,” I snap. “Anyone else can be her TO. Just not me.”
As soon as he opens his mouth, I want to take it back. “The only other one with the time on the force to qualify is Stryker. At least, the only one who might give her a fair shot at this. I can make that call and ask, if I need to.” The emphasis he puts on need makes me cringe.
Eddie Stryker. A good cop and a decent man. But I’ve already wanted to drive my fist into his face for being Emma’s date to her senior prom. He also had to be the one who teasingly said that Emma was hot as she walked into the chief’s office that morning.
Linc, the smartest and closest man available, slapped him before I could put a bullet in his head. And yes, that may have been an overreaction, but where Emma is concerned, I turn into a bloodthirsty asshole and I make no apologies.
“Someone else,” I amend my statement.
Before either of them can call me on it or make it a point to mention that there isn’t anyone else, I walk away.
Amie can train her for a week. Hell, I don’t care if Linc trains his sister after the week with Amie is up. He won’t take it easy on her. Anyone who thinks he would is crazy, anyway. The two of them would torture each other, at least in the cruiser and away from the public.
Taking her out with me to follow up on my cases had been a mistake. I knew it before we even left, but I can’t help it. I didn’t want to sacrifice a day on desk duty, not when I only have two weeks to wrap everything up and hand it off to someone else. The more I finish, the less there will be when I come back. I can’t trust anyone else to get it done.
I walk into the building and through the bullpen without a word to anyone. When I see the chief’s door open, I step inside.
“I see you’re in a chipper mood,” Chief says with a smile on his face. “Did you have a good first day training Officer Hayes?”
“Stuff it, Alex.” I sit down and completely disregard the fact that he is my boss and we’re sitting in the police department. “Why did you assign her to me?”
“I don’t know.” Alex shrugs and takes a drink from the large clear water bottle that always sits on his desk. “It could have something to do with the fact that you’ve been in the desert training for a month when you weren’t supposed to be gone that long and half my department has had to cover for you. Or it could be the fact that Rob called and asked me to make sure that his daughter got a fair shake in a department where there’s only one female officer and she had to fight to even get a spot. My favorite reason,” he says with a smile. “Is the fact that I’m chief of police, and you’re not. So you’ll follow my order or you’ll be looking for another job.”
“Not yet.” I’m baiting him, and he knows it. Alex knows I want his job, just not until he retires. I haven’t even hit thirty, and he still has a long time as the boss. I can wait for him to retire. “I’m not the chief, yet.”
“You’ll get the chair eventually.” He snorts. “If Remy doesn’t beat you to it.”
Alex knows about my career plans. Hell, he knew before I did. And he’s encouraged and guided me every step of the way. That’s how I made detective before most people make it out of their patrol cars. Plus, we both know Remy doesn’t want his job.
“I’m leaving in two weeks,” I tell him bluntly.
The gleam in his eyes tells me he already knows. “Good. You can pass off your active cases, and you can train her. Dispatch, admin, CAD. All of it. Make sure we’re not sending a dud to the academy.”
I roll my eyes at that. Emma Hayes is a lot of things, but she isn’t a dud. She doesn’t have a single failure as a human being, and I know she won’t let our job become her first one.
“I’m not going to lie,” I tell him. “I’m surprised to see her here.”
“She’s been working at it for a year,” Alex points out. “Ride-alongs, the ALERT test, all of it. She’s sat in with dispatch. She’s done the work. As far as I know, she only waited until her twenty-first birthday to make sure that she got her degree, to give her a leg up on the competition. She’s determined. And she didn’t want to apply for anything until she was legally able to work in the state of Maine as a full-time officer.”
“Determined to be a pain in my ass,” I tell him. “That’s what she is.”
“Is there another reason you don’t want to train her?” Alex leans forward and steeples his fingers, staring at me with over twenty years of experience while he tries to get me to break. “A personal reason that would prevent you from being able to do it?”
I won’t break. I’ve been trained not to, and honestly, he’s not even trying that hard.
“Did she do anything to show that she wasn’t capable of doing the job today?”
I do a damn good job of not breaking under his attention, too. At least until he narrows his eyes and touches the tips of his fingers to his nose. “Are you sleeping with her?” He purses his lips. “No. You still look like you’ve got a stick shoved up your ass. If you were dating someone, you wouldn’t be wound as tightly as you are. Especially not if that someone were Emma.”
Embarrassed to have to disclose it to my boss, and someone close to her family, I sigh. “I kissed her.”
His eyes drop to his desk for a moment, and then they spear me with an intensity that I’m not prepared for.
“Don’t do it again. There won’t be a problem. I can’t put her with Stryker. They’ve dated, and I know for a fact it didn’t end well. Hands off, Dom. She’s your trainee, and she’s forbidden.” I see him flinch because we both know when you tell someone that they can’t do something, the first thing they want to do… is do it.
“Don’t worry, Alex.” I put my hands behind my head and lean back slightly, doing my best to appear relaxed, even if I don’t feel it at all. “It was just a kiss,” I lie through my teeth. “It didn’t mean anything.”
A small gasp comes from behind me, and the wide-eyed expression on Alex’s face tells me that it isn’t just anyone standing there.
Hell.
Shit.
Piss.
I turn around to see Emma standing there, not bothering to hide the pain of her reaction at what I’ve just said.
At least I won’t have to push her away.
I’ve already managed to do that without even trying.
When I walk out without saying another word, it’s for the best.
It really has to be for the best.
I may be Emma’s, but she can’t be mine.
And the foot I planted firmly in my mouth is just one more example of why I don’t deserve her.